Alicia Garcia is a proud Colorado native, and equally proud of her family’s longstanding Colorado roots. She spent her weekends and holidays in Trinidad, where her grandfather would take her to the Santa Fe art district, teaching her about their Chicano culture and family history. Her father educated her on civil rights—especially the right to keep and bear arms.
Alicia’s father insisted on teaching her firearm safety, by taking her shooting and going hunting. He also taught her the importance of self-defense. “So many people in my community don’t know their rights. They are actively discouraged from getting the correct information and learning proper gun safety and use.”
Since 2020, Alicia has been a certified firearms safety and concealed carry instructor, and recently became a certified range safety officer, teaching her students self-defense through responsible firearms usage and ownership. She uses her platform to help educate and inform people—just like her father taught her—fighting back against anti-gun mindsets, and normalizing gun ownership. Alicia’s most recent efforts are focused on ending a Colorado law which mandates a three-day waiting period before the purchaser can take possession of their firearm. Mountain States Legal Foundation has joined her in challenging this unconstitutional statute.
Case Background
In April 2023, the Colorado legislature and Governor Jared Polis passed a law that requires those who purchase a firearm to wait three days before acquiring the gun. That is, once a citizen has already gone through a federal background check, a state background check, and paid for a firearm upfront, the government then mandates an additional 72-hour delay prior to actually taking possession of the firearm.
This law has no precedent in American history and is an affront to the right to keep and bear arms, as protected by the Second Amendment.
In 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark decision of NYSRPA v. Bruen reaffirmed that the Second Amendment is an individual right of the highest order, on par with the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other natural rights protected in the Bill of Rights. Given that, the Supreme Court held that any laws which infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms must be consistent with this country’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. To establish this, the government must show that there was an “analogous” law from the time when the Second Amendment was ratified in the late 1700s, or from the period of Reconstruction when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. If they cannot do this, the law cannot stand.
There is no analogous law from America’s founding or during the mid-1800s that is similar to Colorado’s arbitrary three-day waiting period. So, the fact that anti-gun politicians would even attempt this law speaks to their desperation to undermine the Supreme Court and our supreme law. It is part and parcel of a hostility toward the rights of Coloradans and Americans to defend themselves.
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What’s at Stake
Colorado’s law isn’t just a waiting period on the right to possess peaceably purchased property. It is a delay on safety itself.
Alicia Garcia has instructed many students and heard a wide range of experiences when it comes to self-defense. One such student, a friend of hers we’ll call Vicky, had a particularly harrowing story.
Vicky’s ex-husband has been in and out of prison for a while. Though there are restraining orders in place against him, nothing but pieces of paper prevent the ex-husband from going to Vicky’s home or workplace. In fact, even with felony charges and convictions of rape and abuse, Vicky’s abuser has continued to threaten her, and gain access to firearms illegally. The only real deterrent Vicky has against him is that she knows how to defend herself with a firearm.
While Vicky owns a gun, has obtained her concealed handgun permit, and gone through classes to learn how to use it safely and effectively, there have been occasions in the past where Vicky has had to quickly leave town in order to avoid her abuser. If, God-forbid, she didn’t have her firearm on her at the time, her best course of action would be to purchase a new one at her new destination. A three-day delay to possessing the gun is a three-day delay to her safety.
Exposing the Most Vulnerable
Alicia Garcia said, “This law puts people like my friend and so many other women at risk for death, harm, and rape. It also leaves the door open to her children being abused or worse. The politicians say this is about people’s safety—this law is a danger to the most vulnerable.”
Colorado’s firearms waiting period law is not only a violation of peaceable Americans’ right under the Second Amendment, but a threat to their self-defense. Ultimately, a right delayed is a right denied.
Mountain States Legal Foundation is representing Alicia Garcia and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners in this case. We seek a permanent injunction of the law by the federal courts, and a return to constitutional sensibility.
Case Timeline
- April 2023: Colorado Governor Jared Polis signs HB23-1219 (the “Waiting Period to Deliver a Firearm Act”) into law. The three-day waiting period goes into effect on October 1, 2023
- October 1, 2023: A motion for a preliminary injunction is filed to halt the law while the court case proceeds, ultimately aimed at striking the law down completely and permanently.
- October 26, 2023: A hearing on the motion for preliminary injunction is held at the US District Court for the District of Colorado in Denver.
- November 13, 2023: The District Court denied the preliminary injunction.
- November 2024: Parties exchange discovery and expert witness reports.
- January – February 2025: Parties conduct depositions of each other’s witnesses and experts.
- May 8, 2025: Plaintiffs file a Motion for Summary Judgment asking the district court to rule in their favor (invalidating the waiting period law) without a full trial. On that same day, Gov. Polis files his own Motion for Summary Judgment asking that the law be upheld.
- June 20, 2025: Both parties file their Oppositions to the other side’s Motions for Summary Judgment.
- July 11, 2025: Both parties file their Replies in support of their Motions for Summary Judgment.
